Consolation Sweater

   If your friends are anything like mine-- actually, its probably safe to assume you don't have any friends if you're reading my blog or else you'd be out doing something with them. Correction: if friends are anything like my friends, then you probably also have dating terminology that you have established and adapted for your personal purposes over the years. For example, my friends and I once spent the entirety of a house party speaking in nautical codes which corresponded for guys and all things pertaining to them to keep our superficial natures hidden. Tragically, it would seem that seventeen year-old guys were not into girls who spoke like pirates. Lesson learned.
   Anyway. You could write a dictionary- not pocket-sized either- of dating/hook-up/relationship terminology that has worked itself into modern languages. And I've got a new one! The consolation sweater!
   The consolation sweater is something that anyone who has ever had a relationship - be it one night stand, long-term, long distance or could-have-been-but-never-materialized - that failed at any level will understand and appreciate. If you hang out with someone in a "romantic" context, there is a great chance than not that you will wind up with some degree of consolation sweater when it all comes crashing to an end. The term "consolation sweater" refers to these acquired objects regardless of how much of a sweater they are or not. They are the participation ribbons of singledom.
   If I chose to, I could cover the surface of a wall with such consolation sweaters. You'd walk into my apartment and I'd hand you a glass of red wine, ask you to step back from the display and begin,
   "Oh these white sweat socks? Those belong to my most recent ex. At first I thought they were mine, but he had smaller ankles than me, unmistakably. Oh and this hoodie? That's that guy I was seeing a few months back. He said he'd call me, and I'm still waiting, but until then it's a great consolation sweater!"

What Would the Pioneers Do? Well They Certainly Wouldn't Cry About It You Baby!

   When I'm feeling sorry for myself, finding myself saying things like, "this is the worst day ever" and "if this mascara is brown I'm going to kill myself", I remind myself about some guys called the pioneers. The pioneers were badass mobeetches who just canoed around building stuff and being cold but coping with it like it wasn't even a thing.
   I most often call upon the pioneers when I'm talking myself out of buying medication or as I listen to people talk about how they've cut dairy and gluten out of their diets. As I gawk at the price of allergy medication I think to myself, "did Davey Crockett complain when some pollen was stepping on his groove? Maybe, but then he just grabbed a live bass out of the sweet great lakes like it wasn't even a big deal probably."  With the bread thing I'm usually like, "The pioneers ate bread! And sticks! Probably." then I grab the closest carbohydrate and eat it in front of the raw vegans. Its almost as good as the live bass trick.
   Next time you go to complain about how your latte tastes too much like milk, or about cilantro as the devil's weed I urge you to think about the pioneers.

Bathroom Safety

   You know those wavy ridges on the floor of a bathtub? I would like some statistics on how may times those have ever prevented anyone from slipping and cracking their heads open. I would like to know the science behind the anti-slip ridges because, call me a Debbie downer, I don't think any human lives have ever been saved by those, and yet they remain a relevant thing in bathroom furnishing.
   My uncle Tom would have you believe that orthodics are the biggest scam on the market, but I say this trumps orthodics. You can even but extra stick-on wavy bathtub liners if the ones that may or may not be built into your tub are not sufficient (which I promise you, they are not).
   Who are these people with feet like heavy, grated sponges that cause enough friction against the anti-slippies that they are prevented from falling? If your feet are that rough that they create a velcro-like fusion with the stick-on ridges, then I think you should be investing that money elsewhere, perhaps in a pumice stone.
   But who knows, maybe I'm just showering wrong. Maybe if my feet are not being held steadily in place by the decal slip-savers, I should be taking extra measures to ensure my shower safety. Next time I shower I will have to invest in a pair of children's leaotards- the kind with the anti-slip rubbery pads on the feet- to up my game. That way I will fully be able to appreciate and understand the bathtub ridges, and make the most out of all they have to offer.

Killing Ants

   It is a bloodbath in my washroom. There are ant carcasses everywhere.
   Today I bought some of that sweet, sweet toxic ant food in hopes of killing the tiny squatters that have taken up residency in my lavatory. I don't know why or how they came to be, but all I can say is that I hope they are knock knock knockin' on heaven's door. Except if there was a less acoustic, screamier cover of that song. Preferably by System of a Down.
   Before you judge me based upon my murder liquid, think about killing multiple ants in one napkin (which is what I was doing before I resorted to poisonous ant food). The napkin method is so morally fucked up because you are squishing one ant into it, then proceeding to do the same to others, so they die pressed up against the cadavers of their brothers and sisters. So before you go throwing shade, just consider that horribly scarring image. I don't have any siblings so I don't run the risk of suffering such a fate as the ants.
   So basically feeding the ants sugary poison juice that kills them slowly and infects their entire colony is kind and sympathetic.

"Can You Just Look at This Thing? I'll Give you Five Bucks..."

   The worst part about living alone is when something bad is happening on a part of your body that you can't see. A large percentage of such instances involve extraction at an angle that your hands can't manage.

   Not that when I had three roommates I ever had them inspect my body ever, but now that I don't have the option I feel overwhelmingly vulnerable. 

   I saw a friend of mine- who lives alone- break some glass in his apartment and then when I saw him the following week he had glass in his foot. From the previous day. I assume by now the glass has gained permanent resident status in his foot since he has no roommates to go at it with a pair of tweezers. 

   Its not just roommates either. I mean, most of my "friends" wouldn't go near the parts of my body that I can't see with a ten foot pole. Not even if I offered to buy them Jolly Ranchers after. Frankly, I don't blame them; if I don't know what it looks like, I'm not sure if I want to show it to others. 

Cole Porter ft. Mr. Noodles

   Today I've been listening to Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of Cole Porter's So In Love because that's how I spend my days now that I'm living alone and no longer feel pressure to maintain an appearance of moderately hip music pass-times.
   ANYWAY another thing I do a lot of is make Mr. Noodles instant noodle soups. The way that Cole Porter imagined someone feeling while singing So In Love to another human person is the way that I feel towards Mr. Noodles, so naturally I was enjoying these two things simultaneously. So there I was listening to Ella killin' it on them pipes, and ripping open a crisp "beef" flavoured instant noodle when IT HAPPENED.
   I ripped open the package, only to not find the seasoning package inside. It was just the noodles sans fake beef dust. How am I supposed to get that genuine fake beef flavour? Meanwhile Ella is crooning this heart-wrentching tale in the background and its all I can do not to break down right there in the kitchen as she sings the lines, "so taunt me and hurt me, deceive me, desert me, I'm yours till I die!"
   Never was a song more relatable.

Grade One was not a Good Year to be in Love

   I will now clear up one of the many mysteries of time and space which is why I am a stone cold biiiitch. It all started in grade one. 

   When I was in grade one I was in love with a boy in my class. He was in grade two, so it was pretty badass of me. I was like, whatever, age is just a number y'all. One problem: before the age of fourteen I was super shy and blended in with the wallpaper as a hobby. So I decided to make him a card and leave it in his cubby. 

   The card had a drawing of me and him just chilling in the outdoors. I remember him wearing brown pants and being abnormally tall in my illustration. And then I did the boldest thing I have EVER done in my life, which was to depict him holding a little heart-shaped valentine for me. I have never even come close to being this ballsy in my adult life, never ever! 

   So then I left it in his cubby for him to find. Then I saw him tear it up and throw it in the recycling as he stared into my eyes, shaking his head. It was like a scene from a John Hughes film that the main character would wake up from panting and sweaty. Except seven year-old me just had to sit there on the carpet watching from the classroom, not crying.

   That is the exact moment that my heart turned into a bag of sand- not ice, ice can be melted whereas sand never thoroughly heats all the way through and just chills in a heavy lump. 

Cat Callin'

   Okay, here's a thing: cat calling. Does honking your car horn at random ladies qualify as cat calling? There's not really any calling even involved, its just a mechanical operation. It is the most reduced form of hitting on someone. In fact, car honking is not even about the other person. Its a power thing, and this is old news but it still happens so... yeah.
   When I was in my early teens I remember being flattered and feeling kind of excited when someone honked their horn at me while I walked through the street, better yet when someone leaned out their window to yell some incomprehensible thing at me as they drove by. I felt like it was about me. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about me when I was sixteen and its not about me now.
   When someone honks their horn or hurls drive-by pickup lines at someone else its about the person performing the act, and no one else. There is a reaction but there is no response, nor is the response anticipated. Nobody ever gets out of their car to be like, "Oh hey, in case you didn't hear me, I think your ass looks bomb in those jeans".
   Half the time when I've been heckled from a moving vehicle, my face is not even a thing. Its usually dark out, and all it has to do with is recognizing a female form and dominating that person with one-sided verbal expressions. It has nothing to do with anything except power. Its all fun and games for the person yelling, all the while it draws attention to the female form being objectified. For a woman walking alone at night, that is often not a good thing. When you holler shit at a girl for the sake of your own whatever, what you do is draw attention to her in a way that diminishes her physical power not only to you and her, but to those around her as well and you don't know who those people are, and what that woman's situation is. I'm not suggesting that this kind of objectification only happens to women, but on the level of physical prowess, I think it's important to recognize the gender difference.
   Bottom line: what may seem harmless and even a rite of passage, can be detrimental and borderline frightening in the worst (but totally forseeable) circumstances.

Shallots

What are shallots and why would I ever have them lying around?